


Stuck on the End of This Ball and Chain

by Savageandwise



Series: Love in the Time of Corona [5]
Category: Music RPF, Oasis (Band), Real Person Fiction
Genre: Corona fic, F/M, Gallaghercest | Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/pseuds/Savageandwise
Summary: Liam gets high while on tour in Amsterdam and is haunted by the past, present and future.
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Debbie Gwyther, Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Series: Love in the Time of Corona [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747696
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	Stuck on the End of This Ball and Chain

**Author's Note:**

> This piece actually was meant to take place before Jeevey's fic A Thousand Million Miles From Home but because of a small plotting crisis I'm posting it belatedly. Just imagine it takes place about 2 weeks before Paris. I'm really sorry.

February 8th, 2020

It should have ended after the Amsterdam ferry incident. That's what Noel used to say when they'd fight. After that it all went south. The worst part about the ferry thing was he didn't get to visit a coffee shop. No, the worst part was having to listen to Noel bitch about how unprofessionally he'd behaved. Endlessly. For hours. The worst part was not getting to perform. 

This time round he was still feeling worn down after the aborted Hamburg concert. His voice was back, but still rough as fuck. He wasn't about to cancel Amsterdam as well. Bonehead was set to play with them that evening. Debbie wasn't pleased, but she had to live with it. She wasn't really one to sulk, but she told him she had a lot of work to catch up on and sent him on his way with a hat and a warmer scarf and a distracted kiss on the lips.

He stepped into a coffee shop this time round. A little place called Abraxas in a side street, quaint wooden tables and a swirling stone mosaic on the wall. Paul and some of the others smoked a joint, but Liam and Bonehead just ordered plain tea. Liam bought some edibles for after the show, a stroopwafel and a blueberry muffin. He bought the stroopwafel because the name made him laugh. All it was was a waffle biscuit filled with a caramel spread. It looked a bit boring, to be honest.

"No way, man," he said when Paul suggested he eat half a brownie now. "I remember I was in a coffee shop one time and a Brazilian marching band tried to kidnap me. Our kid had to grab hold me hand."

"That's not what went down," Bonehead laughed. "You were climbing up the walls. Noel had to restrain you from following some poor couple home. You'd decided they looked like they needed company, if you know what I mean..."

Either way, Noel held his hand in broad daylight. It had felt good, that's what he remembered. He could feel every molecule of Noel's skin burning him. Noel was made of a thousand million pinpricks of light. It felt like walking into the centre of the sun. He wondered later if the brownie had been laced with something extra. 

"You're just high on me," Noel joked later. "Healthier and much cheaper."

He wasn't entirely wrong. Though healthier was up for debate.

The gig could have been better voice-wise, he supposed. But spirits were high and Bonehead was on top form. After, although he should have gone straight to bed, Liam joined the others at a bar. Everyone else was drinking lager except Bonehead, who was off the booze for good, and Liam, who was on antibiotics. He downed about half of Paul's beer before Debbie slapped his wrist with a rolled-up plastic menu. She ordered him a cup of ginger tea instead. It didn't take long before someone started telling stories of the past, only slightly embellished for dramatic effect. And of course the infamous ferry tale was mentioned. 

"Wibbling rivalry," Paul said with a sigh.

"Wibbling what?" Debbie asked.

Bonehead produced the YouTube video and played her the start. She shook her head in amazement.

"I'm never sure if people are making this stuff up or not. I just wasn't a big enough fan." She grinned sheepishly at Liam. 

"Can't make that shit up," Paul said. "God, Noel sounds insane."

"He sounds like he needed to get some sleep," Liam commented. "I think I sound quite sensible, me."

Everyone burst into gales of laughter. Bonehead relayed the ferry incident to those who weren't aware of what went down. They had been on their way to play a gig in Amsterdam with The Verve when a fight broke out on the ferry and they were all arrested. Everyone except Noel, who spent two days in Amsterdam without them.

"Didn't even bring me a souvenir," Liam complained as though it had just happened yesterday rather than over twenty years ago.

"He probably figured he was still speaking to you, that was gift enough," Paul offered.

Liam pulled the paper bag containing the edibles out of his pocket and placed them on the table. He tried a bit of blueberry muffin and fed a little to Debbie. 

"Just don't start breaking things, get into a fight with football hooligans and get arrested," she said between bites. "Noel was a pushover next to me."

Liam didn't comment. He set the stroopwafel on top of the mug of tea like a lid, just as the girl at the coffee shop had told him to. The warm tea would soften the caramel centre. It tasted better than it looked. He polished off half of the stroopwafel moodily, washing it down with tea. Bonehead was still describing their fight with the West Ham supporters on the ferry to Amsterdam, wiggling his fingers and getting up to do an impromptu Liam parody, much to the amusement of the whole group. 

Liam really only remembered flashes of the ferry. He'd been half drunk already when they boarded, armed with a bottle of Champagne and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He remembered hanging around the bar and taking the piss out of everyone sitting there. Noel had been drinking bubbly, doubled over with laughter at Liam's antics. Was there anything better than making Noel laugh? Not by a longshot. He remembered Noel's shirt had been unbuttoned at the collar, and he'd stared at the skin there for ages, wishing he could lean over, right then and there, and kiss it. He didn't though. 

He remembered running, his fingers sliding over the bodies of the standersby, shouting gibberish at them. He remembered the impact of knuckle against cheekbone. Then he was in the nick. It stank of piss and whiskey and sweat. He felt like a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste and his knuckles were bruised. For a moment he hadn't been able to recall how he ended up there. All he could remember was the Champagne and cigarettes on Noel's breath.

"Fucking hell, William!" Bonehead burst out. "They said start with half. Not fucking eat two. You'll be high as a kite in about an hour."

Liam shrugged. He figured he had twice the tolerance of a regular person having done every drug under the sun for years. Besides, he didn't eat two. He ate the stroopwafel and a tiny bit of muffin. He said as much. As predicted, it took about an hour till he started to feel the effects. Everyone was twice as funny, twice as beautiful. He ran a hand backwards and forwards over Bonehead's shaved scalp, it felt like velvet. The conversation kept circling back to the ferry story like they were stuck in limbo.

"The funny thing about what happened on the ferry is our Liam seemed well enough, then he pisses off with Noel for fifteen minutes. When he comes back he's hellbent on punching everyone on the boat," Bonehead explained.

"What are you implying, Mr. Paul Arthurs?" Paul asked Bonehead through helpless giggles. "What do you suppose the brothers Gallagher, middle and youngest, were up to for fifteen minutes?"

"Drugs!" Bonehead crowed. "Drugs, Mr. Paul Gallagher!"

"Sex!" Liam exclaimed at the same time.

"Nah," Debbie said with a cheeky grin. "Wouldn't take a quarter of an hour."

Liam flipped her two fingers, then kissed her soundly. "She's right, what d'you need more than two minutes for?"

"Poor Debs," one of the girls cooed. "That's alright. God invented vibrators, you know?"

Debbie laughed. "Don't I know it?" 

She squeezed Liam's hand under the table.

"Two minutes?" Bonehead asked. "More like one."

"We were talking about me, lad, not you," Liam countered, but his thoughts were already straying.

_Noel tipped back that Champagne in one go and set down his glass. He rose and left the bar without even turning around, but Liam knew, he'd just known that Noel wanted him. His skin tingled with it. He had never known anything as thrilling as Noel's desire._

"Liam!" Paul was saying. "I think the edibles finally caught up with him. Look at him grin. Feels good, does it, lad?"

_The best part was when Noel grabbed him, gripped him close. And they laughed like their team just won the league, Liam pulling up his shirt, bunching his hands in the soft cotton T-shirt he wore underneath it, panting hard. As they ran down the hall to the cabin Noel shared with Coyley, Liam chanced a quick kiss, drink and nerves making him feel invincible._

It was difficult to direct his attention back to the group after that, like he was one foot in the past with Noel and the sound of Bonehead's laugh only made it worse. Liam was caught between two windows of time, uncertain which one was real. He couldn't seem to focus on any one voice. Everything blended together into one frenetic symphony and just underneath it all was the roar of the ferry engine, constant and steady, like when his tinnitus was acting up. He was seeing double, too. Two Pauls, two Debbies, two Boneheads, two of each like Noah's fucking ark. When he squinted, he thought he saw Noel sitting at the next table over, laughing at him over the rim of his pint. There was only one of him.

"Thought you had twice the tolerance of a regular person having done every drug under the sun for years," Bonehead smirked.

"He's on at least five different pills, poor love," Debbie said, giving Liam's arm a nudge.

He thought he'd just put his head down on his arms for a second until the room stopped spinning. Just for a moment. 

_He dragged Noel's shirt and T-shirt off, tossed them to the ground and ran his fingernails over Noel's stiff little nipples until he tipped back his head and moaned helplessly. Noel was up against the metal door, his bare chest rubbing against the soft knit of Liam's jumper. They were alone and the door was locked and Liam couldn't hold it back anymore. Liam kissed him hungrily, impatiently, groaned into his mouth. He slid a hand down over the folds of Noel's trousers, squeezed his dick through the cloth. Noel was so fucking hard, so fucking hard for him he couldn't think. He couldn't think what to do first. He pressed himself flush against Noel, bent slightly at the knees._

_"Fuck me," he whispered into Noel's ear._

_A sound of lust so guttural, so excruciating, issued from Noel's mouth and Liam, incoherent with excitement, almost came in his keks. His head was so full of all those impressions, Noel's cries, the hammering of their hearts, the incessant hum of the ferry engine just beneath it all like a driving bassline. He felt like he was about to blow his lid like a character in a cartoon. Then the feeling of Noel's hand hard over his mouth and nose._

_"Shhhh."_

_They tipped over sideways, slow motion. The air thick, viscous, like being underwater, everything dragging, every sound muffled._

_"Ah, Noel," he gasped, his own voice booming in his ear, an isolated vocal. "Ah, fuck."_

_They fell onto a soft, violet grey sofa, Noel's body hard against his, his breath harsh in Liam's ear. "You weren't coming, that's what you told me," he said, his voice thick with emotion._

_"Course I came. Had to, didn't I?"_

Liam remembered Noel's hand, gentle against the side of his face, fingers curling into his beard. That never happened, but he could remember it anyway. His skin remembered it. The sharp lines of Noel's body on his. Noel's body as it was now, not tight and smooth as it had been in 1994, but wiry and angular, skin powder-fine with age. Noel's lips were thinner now, pressed against Liam's belly which was soft with too many years and too many biscuits. Noel's eyes on his face, reflecting eleven years of separation and longing. It didn't happen. But it would.

Liam sat up abruptly and looked at the forest of glasses and bottles on the table, the flushed happy faces of his family and bandmates. "Fuck, must have nodded off. How long was I out for?"

He'd gone backward and forwards in time. The sharp edge of his high was slightly dulled and now he only felt slow and drunk, no longer like his senses were being assaulted. Noel's presence had faded to a muted echo, no longer that all-encompassing roar. He blinked at Debbie expectantly.

"How long? Like a minute, babe," Debbie said, letting out a nervous laugh. "Barely a minute. Where were you off to, then? Someplace nice?"

Liam shrugged uncomfortably. 

"Told you not to eat all the edibles," Bonehead said with a smirk. "Like a novice."

"I was feeling peckish," Liam said. "And I didn't eat them all. I had most of one and a bite of muffin. No harm done! Got all me teeth, no one pregnant, no punch-up, no one in the nick. Band still intact."

"He's mellowed, our kid has," Paul said to Debbie with a conspiratorial wink.

"Middle-aged," Debbie said. "It's adorable."

"Ah, get stuffed," Liam groused at her.

"Promise?"

"Maybe." Liam tilted his head. "Ask my manager, she's got my schedule."

"Get a room!" Paul bellowed and everyone dissolved into laughter.

The evening was back on track more or less, but they didn't stay out much longer as they had to be up early to drive to Belgium the next day. As they filed out of the bar, Liam thought he spied Noel again, sat in the corner of the room, watching him leave. Liam pulled out his phone, typed up a message and sent it. He imagined he heard Noel's phone buzz from where he sat metres away.

_Remember the ferry? Not the getting nicked bit the other 1 you know luv from Amsterdam x_

The night air hit Liam like a punch to the gut and he looked out over the bridges and canals, glowing with lights in the grey night. It had ended on that ferry after all. Something ended anyway, only it took another fifteen years to die. The pit of Liam's stomach was itchy with hope. It only took him another eleven years to arrive here. This is where the beginning happened.

_"Course I came. Had to, didn't I?"_

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is a line from a Coldplay song. Both Gallaghers weren't too nice about Chris Martin and his band but in later years they both admitted they're solid musicians. 
> 
> I have a habit of listening to the same song over and over while writing a piece. In this case it was this song, Amsterdam:
> 
> "Stuck on the end of this ball and chain  
> And I'm on my way back down again  
> Stood on a bridge, tied to the noose  
> Sick to the stomach  
> You can say what you mean  
> But it won't change a thing  
> I'm sick of the secrets  
> Stood on the edge, tied to the noose  
> You came along and you cut me loose."
> 
> I find doing that colours the piece slightly.
> 
> Thank you to janescarlett who told me about her experience visiting Abraxas. And thanks to Jeevey and as ever, Twinka♡


End file.
